


Space AU Headcanons

by AithuzahFic (veritably_mad)



Series: Tumblr Ficlets - Ask Memes [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 18:15:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3905983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veritably_mad/pseuds/AithuzahFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If I write a space AU, this is something like how it will be set up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Space AU Headcanons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myrddinwyllt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrddinwyllt/gifts).



> **Meme:** "send me an au and i’ll give you 5+ headcanons about it!"
> 
>  **Prompt from[Unaiza](http://neckerchiefsandmagic.tumblr.com/):** SPACE AU!!!!! PLS AND THANK
> 
>  
> 
> [Link to ask.](http://aithuzah.tumblr.com/post/116954629366/space-au-pls-and-thank)

**1.**  Instead of acting as a replacement for science, magic coincides and works with technology. People with and without magic become engineers, technicians, biologists, chemists, etc. and discover ways to push human limitations further and further back, expand human knowledge far beyond Earth’s atmosphere. That’s how normalized interplanetary travel becomes possible; what magic or science can’t achieve on their own, they can accomplish together.

 **2.**  Leon was born into the nicknamed “nobility” of the Intergalactic Alliance, the upper-class families and politicians on wealthy planets who don’t need to worry about the skirmishes between the IA and rebelling planets at the edges of the system. Still, he gradually learned of the class disparity and became determined to work towards change. When he found a spaceship captain who shared his ideals, he gladly joined the crew of the  _Albion_ with Arthur Pendragon.

 **3.**  Gwaine’s father was a high-ranking officer in the military, but when he died during an expedition, his family was left penniless and abandoned by the government. Eventually, he left home to stow away on ships and start fights in whatever waystation he found himself aboard at the time. He wasn’t sure he’d ever stop roaming until he ran into a mischievous sorcerer and an idealistic pilot who just so happened to need another pair of hands aboard his ship.

 **4.**  Elyan and Gwen grew up on one of the colonized planets. Elyan’s eyes were always turned skyward, and he worked hard in their father’s company to learn enough and earn enough that he’d be able to travel off-world. He wanted to explore every planet he could before his too-brief life would end, so he made himself as useful to a ship that he could be–became skilled in mechanics, piloting, even combat. As soon as he was able, he offered his services to a trading ship that would take him along a string of the colonized planets. He didn’t have plans beyond that. He’d go where he wanted when he could, send messages home if he had the means, drifting through space as though blown by solar winds. It was the whims of chance that reunited him with his sister aboard Arthur Pendragon’s ship years later.

 **5.**  Gwen never expected to leave her homeworld. She’d been content to work alongside her father as an engineer and inventor with remarkable talent for creating new ways to enhance technology through the use of magic. She didn’t expect to be swept away to the stars by Morgana, the sharp-witted and sharper-tongued second-in-command of a spaceship bound for planets uncharted. She hadn’t considered herself an explorer like her brother, but the call of new kinds of magic for her to examine and put to use, new people with unheard of technologies, was too strong for her to resist. Aboard the  _Albion_ , she oversaw repairs and had free reign over remodeling aspects of the ship to improve its function and design–as long as she tested them on a smaller scale first, of course.

 **6.**  On the desolate outer rim of the colonized system,  Percival’s magicless home planet had been ravaged by wars since before he could remember. He sought to take his family and escape the brutality of their life there, but before he could get the chance to buy passage out for his parents and sister, his home was destroyed by an enemy’s blast raid. He was away working during the attack, and returned to devastation and grief. He salvaged what he could sell and used the money to secure a place on the first outbound ship he could find, hoping to find a place of peace where he could build a new home. When he stepped in to break up a fight between a few rowdy bar patrons on a waystation, he befriended a pilot named Lancelot who offered him an opportunity to use his strength–not as a warmonger’s weapon, but as a peacemaker’s guiding hand.

 **7.**  Lancelot was born and raised in one of the drifting waystations that serve as the hubs of space travel, providing travelers a break from the monotony of their ships; a place to refuel; and traders and shops with all manner of food, supplies, and entertainment from across the galaxy. As soon as Lance sat behind the controls of a ship for the first time, he felt as though his life had fallen into place. He learned tips and tricks from every pilot that passed through who would give him a moment’s notice, and he got a job as a pilot for a ferry service between the waystation and the nearby system’s planets, but it lacked the variety and adventure that he craved. Everything he felt his life had been missing fell into his lap–or more literally, his room–when a harried sorcerer fleeing from an overly affectionate griffin that had escaped from the waystation’s exotic zoo needed a place to hide while he remembered which wrangling spells he knew worked on magical animals. After that, the two of them became close friends, and Merlin later dragged him along on the adventure of their lives aboard the  _Albion._

 **8.**  Some of the colonized planets seem almost soaked in magic, while others have a limited supply or even none at all. Merlin was a child vibrant with magic in a world that had very little, a lonely outlier among the people of Ealdor. He quickly surpassed the abilities of even the most skilled hedgewitches his mother could find in their world, and still his powers seemed to grow and thrive. When he became of age, she sent him offworld to learn from Gaius, a healer and sorcerer his father had known long ago and whom his mother kept in contact with over the years. Gaius lived on a waystation as a physician treating the various exotic ailments that travelers unknowingly caught during their journeys to other worlds. To Gaius’s shock, Merlin’s magic surpassed not only the limited abilities of his own planet, but the power of every other sorcerer Gaius had met. Still, Merlin insisted that he stay with Gaius to learn all he could from him of magic, healing, and his absent father’s past. Though Merlin was under orders to downplay his abilities to an extent to avoid drawing the attention of unsavory characters, he still managed to find himself in trouble on a regular basis. When he picked a fight with an arrogant captain from the Intergalactic Alliance’s Exploration Division, he unexpectedly ended up with a new job, a new home, and a use for all the power he never had a chance to explore.

 **9.**  The Pendragons run an anti-magic military base on a planet that has yet to strike a balance between the chaotic freedom of magic and its reasonable restriction. After the death of his wife, Uther Pendragon built his career on the belief that magic should be eliminated and raised his children to follow in that belief. Morgana, though, never fully accepted her father’s teachings, and as she grew older, her dreams sharpened into something dangerous and powerful. Understanding finally dawned when she stole the books her father had kept for researching magic and its weaknesses. Her suspicions were confirmed; she had magic and the power of the Sight. After months of debate and planning, she decided to leave her home in search of acceptance and a teacher to ease her dreams. On the night she tried to escape, though, her half-brother caught her, and she finally told him the truth about her power. Conflicted, Arthur begged her to wait until he could talk to their father. The conversation ended in shouts, fury, and Arthur’s decision to abandon his father’s crusade and join his sister in her search for a new world of understanding.

 **10.**  Arthur’s experience in the military and his tactical knowledge (as well as the funds he’d taken before he and Morgana left) allowed him to enter the Intergalactic Alliance’s training academy and move up the ranks with ease. He wanted to prevent warfare, though, not continue it, so he entered the ranks of the Exploration Division in order to encourage peaceful meetings with other worlds. Eventually he gained the privilege to choose his own crew for a ship of his own, and with his sister as his second-in-command, he gathered a miscellaneous but skilled group of people from all over the colonized system.

 **11.**  The crew of the  _Albion_ has good intentions that don’t manage to keep them out of trouble, and they merrily fuck shit up all across the known (and unknown) universe.


End file.
